Muse Flash; a once-a-month(ish) blog

He’s here, he’s here!

He came two weeks early. And thank God. Because the pregnancy was killing me. So let me back up…

In my last post, I mentioned my trip to the ER. Well, I had to go have another procedure on Nov. 9th. That one was even more severe and I spent 7 straight hours later that day in excruciating unrelenting agony. After spending months with a bad case of SPD pain and then this problem in my last month, it was just getting to be so much. I really think that spending those hours on the 9th in that kind of pain made my body say “ok, it’s time to get this baby out”. The following morning at 5:30am I woke up with contractions. Not Braxton Hicks, the real ones. So, at exactly 38 weeks pregnant, I knew that this was the day!

Ron took some photos of me that morning:

While we were waiting for the contractions to be regular and 5 minutes apart, I passed a pretty big blood clot, and that scared us enough to want to get checked out at the hospital, so we left around 10:30am to go do that. We took a photo in the parking lot by the sign (same thing we did last time when Jaimee was born):
I just love the trees in the background. It was a gorgeous fall day!

They checked me out & monitored me and determined that baby and I were ok and that we should go home until contractions were regular. So now it was 12:30pm and I was 3cm dilated and 50% effaced.

We went home and labored some more. My sister Missy arrived and brought us lunch (the yummiest caprese sandwiches from the Nugget) and we waited. By 3:00pm we were headed back to the hospital… the contractions were coming fast and hard! I went from 5 minutes apart to 2 minutes by the time we reached the hospital! In triage they said I was 5cm dilated and I wanted my epidural ASAP. By the time I got it and they checked me again, I was 8cm.

Me, happy and pain free, with Ron – we’re so excitied!

And ohhhhh, that epidural. I was so thankful. It was the first time in months I was feeling no pain. And there I was with my ideal birthing situation with Ron and my sisters by my side. I was so enjoying it, I was in no hurry for baby to arrive.

Me with my sisters Juli and Missy:

The epidural slowed the progress waaaaaayyyyyyy down. By 9:30 pm I began thinking that maybe the baby would wait until after midnight and have a birthday of 11-11-11. But at 10:40p my water broke (more like EXPLODED – it shook me and the hospital bed!) and Bennett starting coming. I let the contractions do the work, gave one genuine push, and there he was at 11:04pm!

I created a layout with a photo taken just before leaving the hospital. A family of six!
(using all Basic Grey digital)

and then a page with photos I took yesterday:
(using all Designer Digitals – click for larger view and details). I just love how those photos turned out!

So now we’re settling in to life with a new member in our family. He’s nursing well, yay! Now we just need to get his days and nights turned around. We’re so happy and feeling so blessed to have a beautiful healthy baby boy in our family. And I’m so glad I’m not pregnant anymore.

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About Me

A girlfriend introduced me to scrapbooking in late 2001 and that was the beginning of an awesome creative journey that hasn't slowed down! It was quite a revelation at the time since I didn't think I had a creative bone in my body - I never excelled at art in school and my career had always been accounting/bookkeeping/tax.

I have to say that the novelty of being creative still hasn't worn off and I get so jazzed when I am inspired which is why I only hope I can inspire others.

I enjoy life in northern California with my husband and four children and I can usually be found in my creative space (aka, "at the computer"!)

UPDATE: After 7 years of paper scrapbooking, I tried digital scrapbooking in Feb '09. And I haven't looked back!